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Friday, September 9, 2011

DEFINITION: Spin Off; When one television show gives birth to another.

The end of a good TV show sometimes comes to soon...and like M.A.S.H comes way too late. This was the case of Happy Days. In the last few seasons, as the actors became too old to be believable kids, the producers began scrambling for a way to capitalize on the good will that had been built by The Cunningham's and the Fonz. Thus was born Laverne and Shirley.

Laverne and Shirley showed all the creative genius of...fingerpainting. Summing up Laverne an Shirley is pretty easy....It was the Lucy show...with two Lucy's...combined with the Amos and Andy show (ala Lenny and Squiggy). Actually in hind sight I think Laverne was Ricky Ricardo, and Shirley was more like Lucy. If the beer was like the show...then it stinks.

Don't get me wrong...I think Laverne and Shirley was a great marketing stunt that milked the 50's for all it was worth. Of course or those die hard fans, Laverne and Shirley is TV's contribution to Jimmy Carter getting elected. Those same intellectual giants would go on to elect Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama.

Not happy with contributing to the growth of the dumbing down of America, another Spin Off is looked upon as a shining light of humor...yes you guessed it Mork and Mindy. The loveable Robin Williams played the part of Mork (think Lucy from space)..an alien from the planet Ork that was sent to earth to study humans. This wonderful combination of My Favorite Martian...and I Love Lucy can be summed up in two words. “Nanu Nanu”. Pretty funny stuff.

Finally, with all ideas exhausted the producers put their last few devious brain cells together and gave us Joanie Loves Chachi. This brainy comedy really made us think about our everyday lives...mostly we thought about how sad our life was that we would waste time watching this show. Joanie Loves Chachi is Ricky Recardo and Lucy Recardo...sans the cool Cuban accent.

Yes, Happy Days was a fond memory, but the devastated landscape that it left behind was not just bad TV, but it was demeaning to humanity. I often think that Laverne and Shirley, Joanie and Chachi, and Mork and Mindy gave rise to the modern progressive lunacy that has run amok in America...we have become a very bad rip off of I Love Lucy.

And to think...they scoffed at my idea of a puppet from Melmac with a penchant for eating cats was crazy.